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GRIM Epidemic GRIPS the US – How to Protect Your Family From This Threat

Many cities and towns across the country are reporting that opioid and heroin use is at a new high, which is straining resources from their police and sheriff’s departments. In order to deal with this crisis, jails and prisons are starting to cost more and more, and treatment centers and other medical centers are having to find more resources to deal with an influx of clients.

Here are some key facts about the opioid epidemic, from the US Centers for Disease Control, US Drug Enforcement Administration, the Charleston Gazette-Mail and other reports, via Yahoo!:

— Overdoses of opioids, including prescription drugs and heroin, killed more than 33,000 people in the United States in 2015 — the latest year for which data are available. That was more than any year on record

— Of the total deaths in 2015, nearly 13,000 were caused by heroin overdoses

— 80 percent of people addicted to heroin started by using prescription drugs

— West Virginia has by far the highest rate of death from opioid overdoses in the country: 41.5 deaths per 100,000 people in 2015, a jump of nearly 17 from the prior year

— New Hampshire trailed West Virginia with 34.3 deaths per 100,000 population, but saw the biggest increase from the prior year, when the rate was 26.2

— America’s most populous state, California had the largest total number of overdose deaths at 4,659 in 2015, followed by Ohio with 3,310, which like West Virginia has been hard hit by the epidemic

— Of the total deaths from opioids, more than 7,000 were people over the age of 45, including 700 over the age of 65, and 800 under the age of 25 *

— Nearly 11,000 of those who died of overdoses were white, non-Hispanic *

— The death rate from synthetic opioids, like fentanyl, surged 72 percent in 2015, and heroin death rates increased almost 21 percent

— Since 1999, sales of prescription opioids in the United States have quadrupled

— Drug companies over six years shipped 780 million prescription pain pills to West Virginia, a state of less than two million, half of those came from the three largest US drug companies: McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen

— About 1 in 10 babies born in Huntington, West Virginia’s main hospital are born addicted to opioids — suffering from Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) — 13 times the national rate.

* Note: the CDC data breakdowns of age and ethnicity cover only the 28 states with excellent, very good or good rates

Police suggest keeping a closer eye on any medications you may have prescribed to you, as well as keeping an eye on your children. Often teenagers, and college students, end up abusing opioids. There are treatment centers you can call for help if you suspect someone in your family is struggling with an addiction.